


Beginnings

by thirteenghosts (orphan_account)



Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: First five-year mission, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-03-14
Updated: 2015-04-03
Packaged: 2018-03-17 18:15:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,673
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3539195
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/thirteenghosts
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jim and Leonard are plagued by memories of their first meeting -- all 23 times they met. They met at a flower shop in their mid-50s -- how can that be when they are in their 30s now? They met once in a cafe in their early 20s; is that the real one? Why did this have to happen to them? How do you talk about an unknowing? Does it matter? Does anything else?</p><p> </p><p>  <em>You don’t discuss it. There’s nothing to say. There’s everything to ask. Did he see the same things that you did? Did he come back to you as you did to him? You can’t ask these things. But you have to know the answers.</em></p>
            </blockquote>





	1. One

**Author's Note:**

> This is based on one of the now several posts on tumblr generating first meeting opportunities in AUs for your OTP (florist AU will always be my fave). It started out just as a really fun drill just to get them to fall for each other in new and weird contexts and then some plot (sort of) bred out of it. Five chapters probably. It's been sitting in my drafts for months and hasn't gone anywhere in a while so trying to shorthand it into something publishable in the near future just to get it off my drive. I'm sorry. I'm video game trash until stxiii, I fear.
> 
> Just chillllll about the second person, it comprises 20% of the fic tops, move past it, it serves a NARRATIVE PURPOSE, I'm sorry I'm so married to it but kind of I'm not.
> 
> For Alice, originally when she was feeling down. For Alice now, when she is feeling less down but is no less in a relationship with this relationship, bless her.

  


* * *

  


In the days after, you don’t talk about it much.

In fact, you don’t talk about anything. It’s one of those times where you exist in companionable avoidance, taking simultaneous double-shifts, speaking only in professionalisms or requests to pass a tray along the mess line. You ignore each other so beautifully at the outset; he calls you _Captain_ and you call him _Doctor McCoy_ , and it’s painful and fucked up and it hurts when you breathe. But it’s everything you need. At least at first. 

Of course, even then, you convene every night, undressing silently and crawling into bed in each others’ quarters. After that it’s folding tightly into each other, breath slowing from suffocated desolation into some heartbroken sufficiency against each other’s skin, until, holding the other close to you, you both tumble exhaustedly into sleep.

In the morning, you say nothing; it’s only your hand against his back and his fingers over your neck and a breath of something gentle or furious against your lips and then you’re out the door, striding back toward the Bridge, settling into the rhythm of the day, knowing he’s branching off just a few steps behind you, on his way to do the same. 

But soon the distance closes between you, and you want more of him, _need_ him, god fucking help you. In the mess hall you drop your pointlessly cold requests and go back to reading each other’s minds, to your hand on his hip as you step around him, to his fingers brushing yours as you stand in the queue. Now it’s hands on necks between medical debriefings, now it’s orders uttered against his skin; now he steps in and kisses you angrily when you’re both on the lift, now you grab him by the wrist when he passes you in the corridor into the nearest empty room. Now you take moments in the middle of your day to taste every part of him, to twist your hands desperately in his hair, to feel his hands pressing into your skin like you’ve been apart an honest age. Now, suddenly, everything about how you’re coping has changed.

But still, now, you don’t discuss it. There’s nothing to say. There’s everything to ask. Did he see the same things that you did? Did he come back to you as you did to him? You can’t ask these things. But you have to know them.

Some days it’s too much and you try to avoid him completely, decide you’re finished after all, decide the experiment was a gift -- showing you what you could be without him. But then, despite yourself, you show up at his door, or he does at yours; and once, when you think you have the courage to end it, you open your mouth to do it at last only to have the words take the shape of “I thought you weren’t coming” instead.

You think about requesting new quarters. You used to be so good at ending things when you got too invested. But now, you realize, you’re holding your breath, and you only release it when he softly says: “Of course I came.”

You don’t talk about it much. Not with words. But with every glancing touch you’re saying it all, anyway: _I almost lost you,_ _we really almost let each other go that time,_ but also _I found you; I always found you; I’ll always find you again._

  


* * *

  


_ One _

It was a rare moment of peace for Jim: a hungover Sunday morning had evolved into a low-key afternoon, and in the early evening he’d felt restless energy thrumming in his legs again. He swept his jacket from off the floor of his apartment and slipped on a decent pair of shoes, walked to the park, and watched the late October sun lighting up the trees in a chameleon’s array of colours.

Jim discovered, almost immediately, that the fresh air struck him as _nice_. It was, at least right now, better than nice. He suddenly got why people took walks in the park all the time, you know, in movies or whatever. He was known for proclaiming, among friends or acquaintances posing as same, that they should “get some fresh air,” but everyone knew that really meant they should “get some alcohol into their bodies.” Jim thought proudly that now he could give the phrase with an impression of conviction -- it _was_ nice to get some fresh air, people really _should_ get out and get some, and--

And then, out of fucking nowhere, he was bowled over by a _bear_.

Jim shouted in a moment of extreme panic as the bear’s tongue mapped itself over his stubbled jaw. It was a helpless sound and he hated having made it immediately, but there were several bracing moments when he really thought he was about to be eaten. He struggled to push the tremendous form off of him, but with the force of its forelegs on his chest, the best he could manage was a feeble pressing of the hands into the torso bearing down on him from above.

But he was not being eaten. His face was just being given a highly detailed, frankly well-needed bath. 

Suddenly there emerged a shout from somewhere far beyond this place where this bear was his least favourite new friend, and then a long line of gruff profanities came to his rescue.

“Jo-if-you-don’t-get-your-damn-stupid-self-together-so-help-me.” The weight was removed from his chest, and Jim caught his first free breath in what felt minutes. He caught a glimpse of some broad-shouldered bear wrangler in the silhouette of the sun, but was forced to fly a hand up to block the light from his eyes before he could get a decent look.

“Jesus Christ,” Jim croaked, massaging his chest as he scrambled to his feet. “Is that your _pet_?”

Jim could see, now that he had regained most of his full height, that the bear was actually a dog. Oh. So it probably _was_ his pet.

“I, uh, yeah,” the man replied. He shuffled a hand nervously through his hair while the other continued to hold the dog back by its collar. “Most of the time.” Jim started suddenly as he looked up; his new friend the bear wrangler was really fucking hot. “Sometimes I guess she owns me, like when she disobeys my commands to get off any damn stranger that she decides to mud-wrestle in the park. God, I’m awful sorry about that. She’s usually better trained.”

“No lasting harm done,” Jim said, wheezingly. His usual extraordinary talent of turning innocent conversation into a come-on seemed weirdly broken, but then he thought he might be suffering from oxygen deprivation. “I thought it was a bear,” he added stupidly.

The bear wrangler gave a sidelong smirk. He seemed to look Jim up and down, then immediately looked away with a tightening of the mouth, as though cursing himself. The Spanish bulldog, meanwhile, had calmed down to a level of still, panting joy at the sight of Jim. Jim held eye contact with it, as though staring down the beast might get his adrenaline levels to something more reasonable. 

“I don’t blame you,” the bear wrangler said. He was speaking into the park, tilted away from Jim. “Had I been tackled by 90 pounds of solid dog I might’ve thought the same.”

“Why so _much_ dog?” Jim set a hand to his head at the return of his hangover headache and tried to get a grip on himself. He realized he had a lot of other questions, too. For example: why was he saying these words out loud? Had the bear knocked something loose? Was he still drunk, maybe? Or was this just a concussion brought on by having been viciously attacked by what seemed now to be by all accounts an incredibly gentle and well-behaved dog?

“If you’re gonna have a dog, you gotta have a proper dog,” the bear wrangler was saying. Jim distantly remembered he’d asked a question. “I’ve got no patience for anything that makes a noise easily described using a short vowel.”

“This is the most dog I have ever seen on a dog before,” Jim replied. He then decided he was less likely concussed and more likely just struck stupid by this dog’s incredibly attractive owner.

“She is a lot of dog,” the bear wrangler said. He looked back at Jim with a tight smile on his face. 

Jim turned his head sideways at him and squinted before he could stop himself. Why was this guy _so_ hot? Why was he looking at Jim like that? Was it just embarrassment? Or was he, like Jim, caught surprised by sudden-onset awkwardness by the unexpected hotness of the other?

Something activated suddenly in Jim’s gut. “I’m sorry,” he said, rubbing his hands over his face. “I was already hung over, and then I came to the park, which I never do, and fresh air is weird -- did you know it’s _actually nice_ and that’s not just something that people say? -- and then a bear attacked me. It’s been a weird day. I’m usually more articulate. I’m Jim.” He held out his hand and nodded at it to encourage the bear wrangler to shake it.

The bear wrangler gave another sideways smile and shifted the bear-dog’s leash to his left hand, stepping forward to take Jim’s right. “McCoy. Leonard McCoy.”

“McCoy, huh? You always lead with your last name?”

“Nobody but my mother calls me Leonard anymore.”

“And your bear?”

Leonard hitched another half smile on his face as he looked at Jim, then down at the dog. “This here is Jo.” As though on cue, Jo’s tail began wagging. “She likes you.”

“Yeah, thanks. I got that.” Jim heaved a breath through sore ribs and winced heavily. He doubled over unexpectedly and put his hands on his knees, turning away and waving a hand at Leonard’s concerned expression.

Then, to Jim’s surprise, he heard Leonard scoff. “What?” he asked, voice graveling as pulled himself gingerly upright again.

“Boy, there’s no polite way to say this,” Leonard said through a smile, “but your backside is covered in mud.”

In his head, Jim had already finished the sentence with ‘out of this world,’ so this actual conclusion briefly confused him. “It’s -- what? Covered in mud?” He spun around in place and saw that, yes, his jacket and pants were completely caked. “Oh, _fuck me!_ ”

Leonard set a fist over his mouth and steepled his eyebrows innocently as he struggled not to laugh. “I’ll pay for that,” he said in a choked tone. “The dry-cleaning, I mean.”

“No, I mean -- don’t worry about it. I’ve gotta take some other shit in anyway.”

“I said I’ll pay for it, I’ll pay for it.”

“I don’t need you to pay for it.”

“You didn’t need to be attacked by my dog, either.”

“I’m fine, seriously.”

“I don’t care from fine, I care about my duty to--”

“I’m a stock broker, I can afford it. Don’t worry about me.” He winced as he shifted his arm, his hand flying to his ribs. “Tell you what, you want to pay for something? Pay for my medical bills.”

Leonard stepped forward, his concern returning. “Are you hurt?”

“I think I might’ve bruised a rib or two when I was _tackled to the ground by a large animal,_ yes, that seems possible.”

Without warning, Leonard let go of Jo’s leash and stepped forward, setting one hand against Jim’s back while the other prodded gently at his chest. “Does this hurt?”

“Um.”

“Relax, kid, I’m a doctor.”

“A … _medical_ doctor? Are you sure?”

Leonard looked up at him with incredulous eyes. “Am I sure I’m a doctor? Yes. I’m also a PhD, if it matters. Breathe in.”

“What? _You?_ ”

“Old boys from the South can’t be doctors?”

“Guys your age can’t be doctors twice over.”

“You wanna see my credentials?”

“With a dog that size I bet you have to carry them around with you all the time and everything.”

“Shut up and do as I say, would you? I’m trying to help you.”

“Shouldn’t you be more worried about your dog?”

“She’ll sit still until I tell her otherwise.”

About this, at least, Leonard was right; even without his hand on the leash, Jo was sitting on the grass, panting delightedly, not two feet behind him, without any inclination of leaving.

“So she only attacks people when you tell her to?”

At this, Leonard was silent; he only prodded at Jim’s ribs.

Jim gathered Leonard’s hands with his own and pushed him angrily away. “Wait, you _told her_ to attack me?”

“She was playin’, that’s all.”

“Playing!”

“I forgot not everyone is used to handling creatures her size.”

“Jesus Christ!”

“Be still.”

“Get the fuck away from me! Are you kidding?” Jim turned away with more force than was wise given his brand new injury. “Fucking lunatic.”

Jim was walking the wrong way, so he was relieved when he heard Leonard calling after him. “You’re right,” he was saying. “You’ve got a couple bruised ribs, and I’m responsible. At least let me treat them, free of charge.”

Jim had stopped in his tracks and was regarding the steadily darkening sky with annoyance. “Do you always attack innocents on the street to try to coax them back to your apartment?”

“Well,” came Leonard’s voice, “I guess you could say this was the first and last time I’ll ever try that trick.”

Jim turned on his heel and gaped at McCoy. “Are you seriously hitting on me right now?”

“That’s not what this is about anymore. This is me making right my mistake.”

“You sent your brontosaurus of a dog to tackle me to the ground just so you’d have a reason to talk to me?”

“No, I sent Jo to run in circles around you, like she always does, so you’d comment about her as we passed. She’s attention-getting. She got a little enthusiastic. I guess we both did.” Leonard had shoved his hands into his pockets and shrugged. Jim’s eyes followed the line of his shoulders as they fell, and he cursed himself silently. “I feel a damn fool about it, and worse that you’re hurt. Let me save you the trouble of seeing a doctor.”

Jim stared for several moments in incredulity. “I’m fine,” he said, then shrugged. “I’ve had worse.”

Leonard’s brow knitted. “You’re not going to just suffer through with bruised ribs.”

“Why not?”

“Because that would be insane.”

“You know what’s insane? Siccing your dog on innocent passerby!” Actually, if he was being honest, Jim thought this was ingenious. He was sorry he hadn’t thought of it himself. Maybe he’d go adopt a dog next week.

“Let me make it up to you.”

“Yeah, you and your fake credentials.”

Leonard sighed in frustration and gestured to the edge of the park. “Tell you what: I live ten minutes from here. I’ll show you my diplomas, and then you can decide whether you’re gonna accept the cold compress I’m gonna offer you to try to keep the swelling down.” He shut his eyes, briefly, and seemed to bite back a remark. “It’s not like I’m trying to perform surgery on you,” he added, after a moment. “I’ll give you a drink and a bandage and then you can get back to your debauched life.”

Jim forced the corners of his mouth still. The offer was tempting, and that annoyed him. “What if I don’t like doctors?” Jim shot back.

“Then I guess I’ll have to tackle you to the ground my own damn self and take you to get treated whether you want it or not.”

Jim’s eyebrows shot to the sky. He was grinning before he could help himself. “ _Really._ ”

Leonard rolled his eyes, but Jim could see the lines around his mouth where the smile was meant to be. “You coming willingly or am I dragging you?”

“Oh, I’m coming,” Jim said. “But you better have something expensive. Cheap shit doesn’t say ‘sorry I sicced my dog on you and bruised your ribs’ the way single-malt scotch does.”

Leonard’s sidelong smile returned as he moved in step with Jim, pulling his jacket to the side as though he’d be able to see Jim’s ribs through his shirt. “Darlin’,” he drawled, “if you think for a second I keep scotch in my home when I could have the finest bourbon available in these United States of America, you’ve misunderstood what I’m about.”

  


* * *

  


“Do you think … we might’ve been happy?”

You look over to see him staring at the ceiling, one arm hitched beneath his head, same as you.

“When?” you reply, knowing and asking anyway.

He takes a while before replying. “Any of ‘em,” he says at last. “All of ‘em.”

You take a breath and return your gaze to the ceiling, too. You wish sleep had come to at least one of you; you wonder if you’re still connected, in some tenuous way. “Are you not happy now?” you ask, trying to sound casual.

“Not what I’m saying,” he says immediately, but adds nothing more.

Five minutes pass in motionless silence.

“So what are you saying.”

Tense seconds wash over you; then you feel his hand skate over your stomach. “Nothing, kid.” He breathes against your neck. You are at once comforted and not at all.


	2. Five

It’s another two days of long silences before you find something else to say:

“You can get a dog, you know. I mean. If you want.”

He pauses, then laughs: a gentle sound, sadder than it should be. “A proper dog won’t fit on this ship.”

“Shore leave, then.”

“Mmm. Adopt a dog for a month, then take it out back and shoot it when it’s time to go back?”

“No! Jesus. We’ll foster a dog. Love him to death for a while, train him up if he needs it, give him some Georgia land to run around on, and find him a forever-home before we go.”

He pauses again, props himself up on one arm, looks at you over the swell of your arm where it’s cradling your head. “You know,” he says, “that’s not a half-bad idea.”

You smile; it feels good, but like an old feeling, something that makes your cheeks creak. “I think what you meant to say was, ‘golly, Jim, you’re a bona-fide genius’, which, thank you, I already knew.”

He collapses back onto the pillow. “Kindly never attempt my accent again.”

It’s the most you’ve said to each other in days, and it almost feels _normal_.

“Okay, Bones.”

His hand finds your pulse in your wrist, holds it there, and you smile.

\---

_Five_

“No, Uhura, listen — _listen_.” Jim sighed, switching his phone to the other ear while he stood in line. “DC is objectively better if only because it’s more classically … classic. Yeah, I’m already in line for coffee, I’ll get you something. What I’m saying is that we're seeing Batman, end of discussion, non-negotiable.” Jim pinched at his nose and squinted into the cafe. “I know you have this boner for the Hulk, but I just … don’t care. I don’t care. I’m sorry. His only superpower is that he gets angry and green. Congratufuckinglations, you have the world’s most non-superpowery superpower! You get a three movie deal.”

“And Bruce Wayne’s superpower is what, exactly?” came a bitter murmur from behind Jim.

Jim shut his eyes and waited a beat. He couldn’t _believe_ that some dickwad was eavesdropping on his conversation, firstly, and secondly he couldn’t _remotely fathom_ that he’d have the _audacity_ to argue that Bruce Wayne was possibly inferior to Bruce Banner in any fucking way. “I — um, sorry, what were we -- listen, hang on a second, some guy in this cafe thinks he knows the first goddamn thing about Bruce Wayne, and I have to set him straight—“

Jim turned and set his eyes on the source of the utterance: tall, dark, and angry. Jim couldn’t see his eyes behind his sunglasses, inexplicably still on indoors, but if the line of his brow was any indication he seemed to be looking at Jim as though he was gum on the bottom of his shoe. “Uhura, you’re not gonna believe this,” Jim told the phone. “I think I have met Bruce Banner himself, right here in this cafe.”

“Very funny,” Banner groused. “Real clever.”

“And he’s Southern!” Jim reported excitedly, holding the earpiece away from his head. He wanted to get as much of this experience as possible, in surround sound, while still keeping Uhura on the line to bear witness.

“I’m just saying that your argument is faulty if it depends on the quality of the superpower,” Banner continued. His body language was tight, his shoulders tensing around him as he crossed his arms. “Wayne doesn’t even undergo a transformation in order to become Batman. He just puts on a bunch of leather and spandex. Any damn fool with enough money can do that. Hell, I could do that.”

Jim raised an eyebrow, lips quirking. “Could you?” He gave Banner a once-over.

If the lines tightening near his temple were any indication, Bruce Banner had just narrowed his eyes. Finally a hand came up to remove his sunglasses, and Jim started as he saw that Bruce Banner had some unbelievably bloodshot eyes. “You wanna test that Bruce Banner theory o’ yours, boy?”

A wild giggle escaped Jim, completely of its own accord. “Oh, god, suddenly I do.” He returned the handset to his ear. “Hey Uhura, I might be a convert. The Hulk is way sexier than I ever dreamed, and he’s not even in spandex. If I throw sandwiches at him, you think he’ll get bigger?”

Bruce uttered a comment to himself and replaced his sunglasses. Jim tried to contain his rampant grin and held the phone at arm’s length from his face again. “I have to see where this goes. I’ll call you back,” he said, ignoring Uhura’s furious _Jim!_ on the other end of the line as he ended the call. “I accept your point,” Jim countered, again giving Banner his full attention, “but Bruce Wayne more than compensates for his lack of actual powers with qualified powers in the form of his car, his bike, et cetera. Tony Stark does the same thing. Is he any less a hero?”

“The point isn’t whether or not they’re heroes,” Banner snarled. “Obviously they’re heroes. They fight evil, that’s the only description of a hero they or anyone needs. It’s whether or not they’re _super_ heroes that’s at issue, and no, to answer your question, Tony Stark is not a superhero, just like Bruce Wayne is not a superhero.”

“But Bruce Banner is.”

“Damn straight.” Banner removed his sunglasses again and sneered at Jim in a way that got thrill dancing in his gut. “Bruce Banner has abilities that far outstrip any of his contemporaries. It’d be too damn easy to take that power for what it is and let it run rampant, but Banner takes control of it.”

“Okay, I can give you that, but if you control your superpower until it becomes as super lame as Banner’s is, is it even valid as a superpower anymore? You’re making it something else.”

Banner leaned forward and growled in Jim’s face. The smell of stale whiskey danced around Jim’s nostrils. “Boy,” Banner graveled slowly, “the control _is_ the superpower.”

“Oh my god,” Jim said before the words could stop themselves. He was called to the counter, and his breath felt short in his chest. “I’ll get the largest latte you have, and whatever he’s getting, too.” He hitched his thumb over his shoulder at the newly-bespeckled hulk-hunk behind him.

“You don’t have to do that,” Banner interrupted, stepping forward. “He doesn’t have to do that. Don’t do that,” he said, facing Jim.

“You look like you got hit by a hangover the size of Iowa and you still managed to successfully convince me that Bruce Banner at least _rivals_ Bruce Wayne. I owe that man a stiffer drink than a coffee, but this’ll have to do.” Jim flickered his eyes over and watched the man’s brow wrinkle as he handed the cashier a $20. “If he even tries to pay for his drink, throw it in the tip jar,” he commanded the barista and spun away with a nod at the hulk.

To Jim’s satisfaction, the hulk ordered a large black coffee in a mutter; then to his dissatisfaction, he heard a wallet slide out of a back pocket even as the barista insisted that it was paid for. He hoped she shoved the cash in the tip jar, but Jim tried to be nonchalant, staring ahead as he waited for his drink.

“Just what in fresh hell do you think you’re doing,” hissed the whiskey hulk behind him, seconds later.

“Come to the movies with me,” Jim said only.

“What?”

“Come to the movies with me. I want to see the Hulk now. I think I get your point of view but you have to show me. Come on. It’s a dark room and everything.”

“Flashing images,” the hulk growled. “Head-shattering explosions.”

“You’ll drink your coffee and feel fine. I’m not trying to torture you. Yet.”

A moment of stunned silence. “Movies are inferior to the comics,” the hulk muttered eventually.

“Agreed,” Jim said, smiling thinly at the barista as he handed him his coffee, “but in a pinch we’ll have to make do.” He turned to see the hulk squinting at him, sunglasses back on his head, mouth pressed into a thin line as though completely failing to compute Jim’s presence in front of him. “Come on. Are you going to show me how control is a superpower or not?”

The hulk stared at him, slack-jawed and bewildered. “If you’re suggesting--”

Jim kept his expression neutral as he held out his hand. “Jim Kirk.”

The hulk paused a moment, then reluctantly took Jim’s hand. “Leonard McCoy,” he said slowly. “I don’t believe I’ve ever met anyone like you before.”

Jim only smiled at first, then -- suddenly -- grinned. “Leonard, I fucking guarantee you, I’ve never met anyone like you either.” He let go of Leonard’s hand and hitched his head toward the door as he brushed past. “You coming?”

Another beat, and then the fumble of a hand on the stack of plastic lids behind him. “Right behind you, kid,” the hulk growled behind him; and Jim was having a very good day.

\---

There’s a moment you look up to see him standing beside you on the bridge, only he isn’t there. Fear scrabbles at your ribcage and you wonder, _Does he know me?_ You wonder, _Why isn’t he here?_ You make up some reason to call down to sickbay and M’Benga answers, tells you he’s in his office and doesn’t seem like he wants to be disturbed, and you feel your heart rate slow down or your heart starts to sink or something of the sort. You thank him, tell him it can wait, hang up, go back to being the Captain.

Once, a few days later, he hails you. Mutters something about paperwork and then stops -- decides, too, that it can wait. “Are you sure?” you say, but you’re talking into space; he’s already hung up. 

The bridge is silent with unarticulated tension and you close your hand into a fist over your armrest, set it your knuckles down upon it, slowly. “Mister Spock, is there some pressing matter I should be attending to right now?”

“Not that I am aware of, Captain.”

“How about something non-pressing?”

Spock clears his throat. “There is the matter of eighteen months of backlogged reports to file with Starfleet--”

“Sounds perfect,” you say. You turn into your ready room without another thought.

A few hours later, he joins you. You do your respective paperwork in silence. He is still there when your shift begins again, 16 hours later. He does not leave, even then.


End file.
